hey thanks guys i really appreciate the support! but what about the other part of my post repair vs replace? what has been your experience. i know people would just rather replace something like a tv or even a refrigerator because there is always something newer and more hi-tec. but what about other things?

When it comes to these newer electronically controlled appliances Buyer Beware!You had best invest in keeping the old machines going. My opinion.

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About the icons: The beer is tip link, if a tech saves ya some money buy em a 6 pack. The small green square=personal message. The green dot is a link to my web page on appliance repair and other general BS I love to post. The letter sends me email.I love fan letters! LOL

It is a male dominated profesion but that's only because there are not more women in it ...if that makes sense. So go for it male female doesn't make a difference and you will be in a ton of homes and alot of the time it's the mom/wife who will be there and I'll bet ya they will be more comfortable with a woman than a man (opinion via my lovely girl) Repair/replace...I'm fairly new in the bus. so take it as a rookie's opinion; I have set my service call rate low comparably (not lowest) $50 which includes diagnosis and flat rate fee for repair. If they choose to repair the service call is included with flat rate not in addition. This price helps me generate a customer base as well as high enough to weed out and get people who are serious about wanting the repair yet low enough to take it to find out what is wrong and make the decision.That being said, you will find the more you learn most of the time you will have a pretty good idea of what is wrong before you even go out. There has been times I will tell the customer what I think it is and it will be pricey if that is the prob. only once out of a dozen or so times have they decided not to have me out and some decided to not repair and just paid the service call.There are folks on this forum with a ton of experience and can give you a much better outlook than I but that is my rookie point of view...for what it's worth

In regards to Whirlpool Tech's statement. Yes they are the same company. In my area one Women Drives a sears service van, and the other drives a A & E van.

I personally do between 9 and 11 calls each and every day that i work. I could do more if there were enough hours in a day. There is plenty of Service work to be done out there. The company I work for hired 2 new techs last year, and 2 already this year. We are a very lucky company, because the area we live in holds almost 1 million people in our service area. Here's where I live http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehigh_Valley

@rego where/how did you get your training? somebody said they took an online coarse ICS Appliance Repair i think it was you but im not sure. if so what did you think of it? the penn foster coarse im looking at says you can finish in as little as four months i dont know how true that is, but it would be nice.

It's been a couple years since I researched school's but this is what I did: I saw the penn foster and other's that took you from nothing to entry tech. I already had a degree in marine technology so already had all the electric theory (definately know your electric!), motor's, etc. so ended up taking uncle harry's course. I spent about 3 month's going through his program as well as working with a local company for a couple year's doing service calls on water heater's and pool and spa's before going out on my own. No need to take the couple year's just threw it out there so you know my background it did help me with troubleshooting skills as well as how a service business run's. Uncle Harry's is a decent course but when I took it it was out of date. A lot of good basic knowlege which let me know what direction I needed to learn more. After his course ended up on multiple forums constantly reading post's and researching what didn't make sense. This site is fantastic! Not only do the tech.'s talk you through thing's but the sharing of manual's is incredible. You can get through anything with the right manual and common sense. There are theory and education manuals as well as service. If I had it to do over again I think I would read all the education manuals on here, watch all the video's I could get ahold of, head down to local book store and see what they have, and finally poke my nose around the local appliance part's shop and talk to the folks there see what they've got and there thought's (may get lucky with a local class). I don't believe I would have ended up spending all the money on uncle harry's if I did this but he has a pretty good program that discusses all aspect's of the business and maybe he has updated his stuff...I wasn't all that impressed with it but it did get me started. Start reading and grab some free machines and tear em apart and never be afraid to say "I don't know" and figure it out from there. Good Luck, it's a lot of fun, just have to be smart about how you go about it. Profit margin's are slim to start and takes a while to build a business unless you go work for someone else...no one was hiring where I am so went out on my own.